Body Control
by MorbusParkinson
Summary: 10 years later. Musashi notices that something's wrong with Hiruma. What's going on and how will his life change? MusaHiru. Other pairings appear as sidekicks.
1. Chapter 1

Something became different.

Something became different about HIM.

Musashi didn't bookmark the morning when he noticed something changing. The only thing counting for him was this sort of strange behavior.

Hiruma had never been a lazy person (obviously). So this seemed absolutely unreal, to watch him sleeping silently beside him, not even waking up by the yelling alarm clock.

With deep grumbling Musashi bent over and switched it off. Hiruma didn't move a single bit. Not even his eyelids twitched. He just lay there, looking as if he'd dream of something really nice. Well, probably in this case nice didn't mean something like a big cake factory in the clouds. Maybe it was a liquid dream or something.

Musashi let his head fall on the pillow again while rubbing over his beard stubbles. He tried hard to remember the last time when Hiruma didn't wake up before him. Usually he woke up alone, finding him downstairs in the living room in front of his laptop or being off to somewhere already. Sometimes Musashi woke up by a merciless tackle in the morning when the first thing to see was a big grinning and mischievous face.

Looking at him he turned softly around and hugged him tightly. He really knew, that Hiruma didn't like such things. He wasn't the kind of person who could spend all day long with hugging and kissing and all that stuff. So Musashi jumped at that opportunity and, being the total opposite, pressed his body against him. Sometimes Hiruma would call him 'fucking cuddle bear' just because he needed to be just as close as possible to him.

He rubbed his cheek against his temple, humming quietly into his ear, closing his eyes and stroking tenderly over one of his arms. And then he began to realize that waking up first hadn't been the only thing changing in the last weeks. Somehow Hiruma seemed to have lost his drive. He seemed to be tired. Slowing down. Zoning out all the time. At first he ignored it. Nobody would have expected it, but maybe even a demonic person like him might be able to lose his energy.

But know, rethinking all this, Musashi wasn't sure if this really was normal. And, as he knew him too well, he figured out for himself that it absolutely couldn't be normal. The solution could never be as simple as it seemed. Burn-Out, Midlife-crisis and such things seemed too simple for a complicated personality like him.

Something was terribly wrong about him.

Musashi started worrying.

No. It was more. It somehow felt like a terrible premonition lying like heavy dust around his heart.

A slight move under Hiruma's blanket pulled him out of his thoughts. Silent grunting followed by heavy breathing made Musashi moan a bit. Carefully he started groping to find the cause of the sounds and soon pulled his hand away in disgust.

'Cerberus…', he sighed and tiredly looked at his hand full of dog slobber. Cerberus II really was the most fattest and laziest dog he had ever seen. But still Hiruma hadn't given up yet trying to educate a second Cerberus. Though two years of hard work didn't show any success, Musashi was sure about it being some kind of 'fun' to Hiruma. Anyway he let him have his ways, as usual. It must've been Hiruma's way to deal with losses, trying to fix the hole by any chance. That's why he didn't really talk about Cerberus' death, he simply tried to replace him. Yeah somehow nobody would have expect him to cry over it but not even Musashi believed his eyes when he saw Cerberus II and Hiruma excitingly explaining the mad education plan.

'Come here, boy', he whispered, sat himself up and groped in front of Hiruma's belly to grab the whimpering dog that had snuggled secretly against his master. Deciding to let Hiruma have his sleep, he got out of the bed and wobbled downstairs to feed the damn dog.

'You're a little bitch', he said smiling while filling Cerberus' bowl, 'that should be my place. If someone snuggles onto him at night it should be no one but me, you know…' he mumbled, obviously trying to joke around a bit.

He fondled him behind his ears for a second and left for the bathroom, showering, being too lazy for shaving and returning to the bedroom to dress himself up. Hiruma was still sleeping. Usually he had such a slight sleep, waking up by every single sound with twitching ears. Musashi tried to calm himself and his heavy heart down. Maybe he really had nothing else but too much work. Everyone is stressed out from time to time. And Hiruma being the workaholic he was might need a little bit of sleep now and that's it. So he left again, cooking coffee, doing a little cleaning here and there.

He was just about to take the last sip of his coffee and thinking about waking him up, when he noticed sounds coming from upstairs and just a few seconds later, after he filled a second cup with hot and strong coffee, Hiruma running downstairs like a devil.

'Goddamn alarm clock. I'll sue that fucking company for their shitty piece of NOTHING.", he grunted angrily, packing his laptop into his bag. He rushed through the living room and the kitchen, ignoring Musashi, who stood there with Hiruma's cup, waiting for him to notice.

'Your coffee…', he mumbled.

'Why didn't you wake me up?', Hiruma yelled at him furiously, groped the cup rudely and took quickly a few sips.

'You were sleeping…'Musashi replied calmy. 'Don't you want to sit down a second?' Though he knew his trying to calm him down wouldn't show any results. Hiruma looked mad and angry and horribly tired with slight bluish grey marks around his huffly sparkling eyes. Musashi sighed, when Hiruma pressed the cup back into his hand and rushed towards the door.

'Got fucking appointments', he mumbled, putting his shoes on and Musashi rolled his eyes. He must have known that he would get this angry. He slowly put the cups down at the table, almost tripping over little fat Cerberus II, who moved slowly from kitchen to corridor.

'I know, like always, but shouldn't…', he stopped himself while talking. Not only because Hiruma gave him a furious don't-you-dare-saying-anything-now-look, but he KNEW… giving him advice to slow down would be senseless. Especially he himself didn't behave any better, working a great deal too much for the company.

'Hn… nothing', he then mumbled while noticing one of Hirumas strands being totally messed up. Sure, he had seen him being in a hurry a thousand times. But not being this angry about it. Actually Hiruma was somehow a reasonable person, that knew when his body needed to rest a bit. Musashi's eyebrows moved to different sides.

'Don't give me that fucking housewife-look. '

Even in his late twenties Hiruma looked a little sulking 13-year-old brat. And Musashi started to miss one of that demonic and hoarse laughter of his this morning, knowing they wouldn't see each other until evening. Hiruma opened the door to leave.

'Mh… sorry!?', he mumbled a bit monotone to avoid argues now. 'Do I get a kiss?', he then asked with a crooked smile to make peace fast.

'Yeah yeah whatever', Hiruma answered, giving him a little slap on his lips as a replacement for the kiss he wouldn't give him now. Musashi let his eyebrows sink down. He got used to it. But it was still disappointing when Hiruma tried to avoid physical contact that excluded sexual intentions. After all these years in friendship, after all they had experienced together, this wasn't only a sexual relationship at all. Musashi was pretty sure about it to be love. Although no one of them dared to say that out loud. If Musashi would say those three little words to him from time to time, maybe whispering it into his ear, Hiruma wouldn't react in any other way than bursting out with laughter. So Musashi also tried to avoid this. And still it hurt a bit that Hiruma disliked kissing so much. Sometimes Musashi thought that this might be better, because Hiruma turned out to be a horrible kisser, always biting and starting to move his tongue just too wildly. But just right now Musashi would have loved to get a little good-bye-kiss from him.

'Appointments', Hiruma repeated and just by turning around, Cerberus II raced out of the door suddenly. Unbelievable how such a small fat sausage on legs could move so fast. He raced outside like an idiot, barking like an idiot and being all excited about something.

And Hiruma being in his bad mood today got really pissed.

'You fucking idiotic dog, what the hell is wrong with you?', he yelled immediately. Musashi was about to simply roll his eyes when Cerberus II suddenly jumped over the fence. 'Fucking shit. I don't have time for this now' he heard Hiruma mumble the moment he let his bag fall down and ran after him. Cerberus II didn't really like running around like normal dogs. But he loved cars. Musashi already had a feeling that this dog is going down with his 'hobby' to chase the cars that drive down the roads from time to time. But yet it surprised him somehow, that it really happened.

It always had been Hiruma's job to educate his little experiment and to run after him, when the dog practiced his suicidal hobby, so Musashi hadn't moved by now. But when he heard that crashing sound and saw Hiruma standing still all of a sudden, he slowly moved to Hiruma's side. It was ugly. Really ugly. He had never seen such an ugly thing. The second Cerberus hadn't been in any way prettier than the first one. They both where pretty ugly dogs. But now the only thing left of him was an empty fur swimming in a red pool with intestines flowing out of that frozen brown plush.

When people saw things which kept their attention although it could look horrible, they tend to say 'It was like a car accident, horrible, but you couldn't look away!'. And that was exactly how Musashi felt. He needed a few seconds to take a look at Hiruma, when the car driver slowly stepped out of his silver, now silver with red sprinkles, shimmering car. He expected Hiruma to yell at him, telling him, that his might have found his driver's license in the garbage can. But Hiruma didn't move. He didn't say anything. This was one of the rare moments when Hiruma Youichi didn't knew what to say or to do now.

Because death was something he couldn't control.

Maybe only a few people, maybe only Musashi could imagine that Cerberus really had meant a lot to Hiruma back then. Although he had been some random ugly aggressive dog, they found somewhere on the street. Even if he had never really been Hiruma's 'pet', Musashi was pretty sure that Hiruma had seen Cerberus as kind of 'pet'. When he had died Musashi had started to think over it a little bit. Many people build up strong relationships to animals and feel like having lost a beloved person, when their pets die. He always had wondered if that was what Hiruma had felt for that dog back then. But seeing him now being speechless by seeing how the substitute also died, assured him pretty much in that thought. Hiruma wouldn't want to show it of course. Still, exactly now in that instance, a moment of losing control of something important, Musashi saw Hiruma's hand closed around the doorknob of the gate he had opened before he stopped moving while… shaking.

Nothing unusual for any person, a bit unusual for a person like Hiruma, but totally unusual how it looked. Musashi couldn't describe it. He couldn't describe why it looked so strange. It didn't look like some emotional reflex, it didn't look like a shock. It simply looked weird, as his hand closed so tightly around the knob, shaking like hell and the rest of his body standing still, not knowing what to do.

Whatever had changed.

Whatever had seeded sand on their garden of life.

Musashi didn't want himself to get rid of the heavy thoughts. By now he was 100 % sure of something being so wrong.

Something had become different.


	2. Chapter 2

II.

Musashi waited for Hiruma to say something.  
How could 10 seconds feel like 10 hours?

Finally he heard him mumbling something like 'Your company is waiting'. And he was right. He looked at his watch. Already 7:15 am. If he wouldn't go now, he'd be late. So he turned slowly to his truck, observing how Hiruma took off his jacket to scratch the mashed dog from the street, silently.

When Hiruma had entered the house and closed the door behind him Musashi started his truck and slowly drove to work.

Wasn't that very strange? The way Hiruma just didn't do anything in particular seemed unreal, not fitting his character.

But it seemed that even Hiruma should be at least a little bit shocked to start talking the car driver down. From his rear-view mirror Musashi saw the man slowly taking his seat inside his car again, shaking his head by wondering why he was still alive.

They lived in a pretty silent and clean neighborhood. It resembled some of these harmonic paradise like suburbs made for families with children and old retired people who weren't doing anything but working in their gardens all day long.

Japanese houses standing in a row except for one big American styled house with a huge garden and an even much huger backyard.

Musashi didn't think that Hiruma liked it too well, living in one of the most bourgeois part of the city. But that was one of those tiny love expressions Hiruma used to make. That piece of ground had been a kind of present to Musashi.

And he loved it.

He loved this little piece of peace.

Everything was shining so harmonically, peacefully and silently. To him it was absolutely perfect. This home was everything he ever needed.

Years ago Hiruma had laughed at him. Of course dreaming the dream of a man who wanted to settle himself down, dreaming of house, wife, children, made him seem even older than he already looked. And now he had this house, somewhat a wife and until just a few moments ago something like a child. At least he loved to compare his lifestyle to the perfect life people loved to imagine.

He never had dared to think that love hotels and changing rooms would develop to THIS. And he had never ever expected Hiruma to fulfill his only modest and cheesy wish. He had found confidence in his life although not everything was actually really perfect.

The people living around here for example still didn't know how to handle their exotic neighbors: one who was obviously mad and one who absolutely didn't care about it, two men and their dog living together in a house suited for six persons. But they got at least used to it, though everyone seemed to be scared of Hiruma. And honestly: who wouldn't be scared of an insanely laughing, gun loving guy who didn't give a shit? Maybe the guy in the car just before would go around now, telling everyone that he might be on Hiruma's 'Black List' now and certainly be killed next week.

Musashi really wondered what Hiruma was doing right now. Didn't he have important appointments as he was hurrying so much this morning? He suddenly felt that he shouldn't have left him alone. But even if he had stayed, Hiruma might haven't said anything but 'You old idiot! As if I'd break down and cry now. Go to work!' He felt like he should be there now. Even if he was afraid that Hiruma might have said nothing. Maybe he didn't want to see that. So he decided that leaving right now had been the best thing to do.

It was strange enough to simply imagine Hiruma being all sad and everything. And he knew that Hiruma hated to show such uncontrolled feelings to others. Even if it was him. It was right to leave him, so he wouldn't have to feel embarrassed about anything.

Musashi simply worried.

If this accident was such a shock to Hiruma, that he couldn't react in his usual patterns, something had to be awfully wrong.

''''''''''''''''''''

This was such a rare moment.

Hiruma hated it - not knowing what to.

He really didn't feel like taking actions.

He absolutely didn't feel like driving to the crematory now. And he didn't want to make a grave, or put an urn on the mantelpiece they didn't had and the least thing he wanted to do was to throw him away like a rotten sandwich.

He only wished for everything to be like before. Simply everything.

Why did it feel so awkward? This fat and lazy good-for-nothing substitute was dead. So what? That was the bill for being so stupid to chase cars.

He kind of realized now that Cerberus II could never have substituted the real Cerberus but that he had his certain charm. And yes, maybe he was… sad about his death. He could just not understand why it made him feeling down so much.

He laid his jacket with the enrolled dog in a big bag and took a seat for a second or two. He hated it, he tried to forget about it, but he knew there was something else that has been ruining his mood since weeks. It troubled him. And it caused him bad headaches. And somehow he wanted to deal with it all alone by himself. Although he knew too well, that one day would be the day when he had to tell HIM.

Something inside him rebelled against that fact.

He COULDN'T tell him.

He couldn't go on destroying people's lifes.

He couldn't do this to him.

But there wasn't any way to avoid it.

There was no way to change it.

Even turning back times wouldn't help.

There would come the time, when he couldn't hide it anymore. And he realized that this time had started today with the uncontrolled shaking of his hand and these uncontrolled surprising emotions deep inside of him showing up now.

Musashi wasn't dumb, he knew that. He'd start to notice soon that something was wrong. That he was hiding something from him. Hiruma feared the day when everything would be revealed. He feared the reactions and he feared how people would handle it, when even he himself didn't know how to do it. He was that kind of person who always had a plan, and a plan b to z. But right now he had no plan. No control. No influence. He couldn't stop it. And it would keep on from now. It would become worse and worse and he couldn't tell how his future would be. That scared him. Yes, those were the things he feared – uncertainty.

Looking around in the living room he remembered good old days. And the moment when he thought, that this life was the life he wanted to choose. When he let this house build, when he let Musashi step inside his life like no one ever before. And although he had laughed at Musashi back then he started to like it. Yeah, he really liked this surreal life they lived. He started to feel comfortable with it. And feeling comfortable was hard. Feeling happy and content was so hard. And though he didn't fit this suburb, and didn't fit the faithful and terrible smug neighbors, though this all didn't fit his character at all, there was one thing that made him even love this.

Musashi gave him a home.

He gave him someone who was waiting for him, when he returned home after work.

He gave him stability.

He was giving him something he always lacked of, but never missed.

And now he would miss this. He didn't want to miss this.

But most important: He didn't want to destroy it.

On one hand these thoughts made him go insane on the other hand he felt more … love than ever before for him. He would never say that out loud, for sure. He even avoided only thinking about it. And becoming so fucking sentimental now didn't help his shitty situation at all.

He didn't lay the appointment off – he held it by cell phone. Others just had to deal with it, period. He shoved away his poring over stupid things. He just tried to make the day, to pretend, everything was alright. This morning hadn't been a good start at all, let alone waking up so tardy. But the worst thing was that there was this certain reason WHY he overslept, why he felt so damn tired, so fucked up, so not like himself anymore. And he was mad at himself for being so shitty this morning, for fucking up his usual patterns.

He only hoped that Musashi didn't ask that he didn't make him lie.

Not that Hiruma never lied. He lied very much, indeed. But he didn't really want to lie about this. Not now, not today.

He came home late and by seeing his truck being well parked in the gateway, he had this lovely feeling of 'being home'. Returning to the hotel you actually live in for a few weeks didn't feel a bit as well as this. Opening the door, entering this warm and cozy home, taking shoes off, letting jacket fall anywhere and seeing him waiting for him. Obviously not really listening to what the guy in TV tried to explain, taking a few sips of his beer, Musashi sat – no he almost lied there – on the couch and lift his head.

'Welcome home, honey', he nagged him.

'Stop talking, fucking fag', he mumbled and let himself fall down, laying his head at Musashi's lap.

Musashi was surprised - a little bit. But he stopped talking. He carefully lay his hand on the blonde shining head and slowly started fondling.

He had questions. So many questions.

How was your day.

How are you.

What in the world is this, that makes you seem so gloomy these weeks.

But he stopped talking. And stopped thinking about it by looking to the door, recognizing something like an urn.

And so he decided to wait. To wait for him to talk. To wait for him, to tell him why the hell he lay there sleeping on his lap, instead of hitting on him heavily as usual.


	3. Chapter 3

III.

He just didn't seem to be the same person as before. Hiruma's bad mood didn't change for days. Musashi observed him secretly and very intensely but it came up to him as a bad idea as he sometimes couldn't find anything left of the man he used to know for so many years. And one single moment was enough to give him the creeps.

He had woken up one morning and at first it had resembled every morning in the past years: He woke up, Hiruma's bedside empty and the smell of coffee around the whole house. So he got up, showered, dressed up and went downstairs finding Hiruma sitting on the couch. That hadn't been anything but unusual but instead of typing things on his laptop or doing researches or making phone calls, he just had sat there. He had sat there staring somewhere, his face looking almost expressionless. Musashi had not dared to make a single move as he saw Hiruma starting to nibble his under lip, looking all of a sudden doubtful and somehow clueless, which had been a very rare thing. That sight totally had destroyed the image of someone who always had tried to make a mysterious secret out of himself and the image of someone, one had used to know since middle school. Musashi had felt like wanting to give him a hug. But if he had done it, it wouldn't have been anything but an absolute egoistic action. He had felt that he only wanted to calm himself down with that and he had been afraid of Hiruma not reacting normally.

Hiruma used to actually start giving him stupid names for wanting to do normal 'couple things' to him, for hugging and kissing and caring (although he seemed to appreciate it in some very few moments or accepted it when he noticed that Musashi needed it badly).

But back then it hadn't seemed right to Musashi to ask for it. Especially because Hiruma had seemed to be so absent, not even thinking about something, just sitting there, staring, nibbling his lip and blinking every third second. And Musashi already had gotten desperate when Hiruma suddenly lifted himself up, passing him by without a single word and started preparing to get off to work.

Musashi had been confused. He simply couldn't make a suggestion about Hiruma's reasons to behave so strangely. Blaming the dog's death just had seemed too simple and too out of character. The new season would start soon and Hiruma Youichi wasn't at his best. That was something to worry about, although the teammates didn't notice, yet. But they might do it soon. And Musashi was sure about Hiruma not wanting anyone to notice, that something wasn't right.

''''''''''''''''''''

Like every day, Anezaki Mamori followed her usual routine. She got up early, took a shower, put make-up on, did her hair, dressed herself up in something nice and respectable. She had to admit that she did all this not only for her sake. She did all her actions in the morning to get ready for work for her boss. Especially preparing today's appointments and organizing some things BEFORE getting to the company was something she did to please him, like she had always done.

Her private life was a mess as her professional life was perfectly well organized.

She didn't marry.

She didn't have children.

She didn't even have a boyfriend.

No, she did not even have a lover – to say nothing of one night stands.

Anezaki Mamori lived for her job.

Friends made her life being filled with joy and happiness, but when she got home in the evening, sadness reached her heart and she pushed it away by starting to prepare the next day. And disappointments like dating with absolute horrible and inacceptable men even made her returning to her office in the 49th floor until 2 am sometimes.

Sometimes this routine she had built up reminded her of someone whom she always had told 'you work too much!'. And she would have loved to change it, she would have loved to skip this pattern, but she just couldn't. She didn't have anything in her life that was worth giving up her job for. There was nothing more worthy to her than being helpful to her boss. Her faithful allegiance hadn't changed since high school. And even if she wouldn't get such a great salary which enabled her to possess all the material things she wished for, she would stand by his side – like she had always done.

Anezaki Mamori was a person who always had been aware of her feelings and not afraid to face her emotions. And she knew very well, that it was all HIS fault. Because she still loved him. And she felt like being stuck on him, like being a small doll glued into his life. That's why she still kept her loyalty unquestionably, although he had hurt her so much and although it meant for her that she could never be anything but a helpful hand to him. That was her destiny, being the personal assistant of the love of her life.

On her way through the streets she became quite melancholic and nostalgic. Sometimes she wished to turn back times so much, that she felt a big and heavy stone in her throat. Back then in high school she would have never imagined her life being like this. She had imagined to become a loving woman, a kind mother and a perfect housewife. But the only thing she became was a sad and small figure lost in space. She felt as if she wasn't living now, she was living in her past. She knew she was thinking a little bit too often about the 'ifs' and 'whens' and 'woulds' in her life.

What if Hiruma Youichi wouldn't have left her?  
What if she still was more than a good friend, more than a manager, more than an assistant, what if she had become what Musashi seemed to have been for him even before she knew him?

While arriving at the premises she shoved her thoughts away. The 'ifs' and 'whens' and 'woulds' were stupid, they wouldn't help anything anyway. She put on her lovely face as every day. She didn't want to give him the feeling to have done something wrong back then. That is why she had accepted his job offer. She could imagine really well that no one could push his or her real feelings aside and live a lie. She could understand that Hiruma couldn't have lived in a relationship he didn't feel 100% comfortable in just as she couldn't fall in love with someone else, who she didn't love at 100%. And although her dream life would remain a dream, it gave her a save feeling to know that she was still a part of his life, even if it was a small one.

With light steps she entered the huge building, greeted all the colleagues on her way friendly as ever, as if she wouldn't have almost cried a few minutes ago. She played the role, Hiruma had given her, perfectly. He sometimes joked around and called her 'the flower of work'. She knew it was an expression men loved to give the office ladies. Although she had nothing in common with those young girls who only cooked coffee and made copies but didn't have any other qualification. No, she was intelligent and creative and she was able to speak her mind and she was a good help. But she appreciated that strange compliment because she knew that it must have been his kind of expressing that she cared for his company like a mother for her baby. And by arriving the 49th floor, she reminded herself why she became such a workaholic. She felt that Hiruma's company, which they had built and raised together, was something like their child. It was something she understood as Hiruma's apology for being her boss and not her husband.

Surprised she entered the floor. Usually Hiruma already waited for her in front of the elevator and told her every news on their way to their offices and of course to get his coffee , which she brought with her every morning from the shop a block away. But today he wasn't waiting. He didn't take his coffee with a smirk in his face, he didn't start talking his head off about new information. He simply wasn't there. She left the elevator nervously when one of the secretaries told her, that he already had arrived but hasn't come out of his office for half an hour so far. She thanked her and decided to pop in his office. It wasn't unusual for him to show up earlier than her, but what she saw confused her. She closed the door silently with a puzzled look in her face.

Yeah she had noticed that he had been behaving slightly different for a few weeks now. He had been looking tired all day long but she had never ever seen him like this, leaning his forehead against his hand, elbow resting upon his table, while the other hand lay on his keyboard – sleeping almost peacefully.

She started worrying. But still put a smile up on her face.

''''''''''''''''''''

Hiruma woke up all of a sudden by the loud knocking and the door opening. Quickly he brought his body into a position that didn't reveal that he had fallen asleep.

'Good morning, boss', Mamori said with a fake smile in her face placing his coffee in front of him. She sometimes called him like that to tease him a bit. From her fake smile he could tell that she might have noticed, but pretend to not know about it when he grunted a hoarse 'thanks'.

'There is a problem about the new screen in the Tôykô dome. Go and solve that problem, make some phone calls… you know, the usual', he added with a dry voice and took a sip of his coffee to get rid of his crappy sounding voice. He didn't feel like he had the strength to talk to her like he usually did. He just wanted her to leave as quickly as possible to wake up properly.

When the door closed he sighed deeply and ran his hand yawning though his hair. He felt horrible. It had never happened to him in the office, feeling so tired that he fell asleep just like that. Hiruma couldn't believe that this happened right now. The truth lay above his head ticking like a dangerous time bomb. He wouldn't have much time left to hide the symptoms. Some of them started to become damn obvious. Especially for Musashi and Mamori, the two persons that knew him best and were around him every day. And he felt bad for sending her away with such a lazy order. He was assured of her starting to wonder, just as Musashi did.

He remembered very well one morning, when he had woken up quite early, which happened less than it had used to. He had woken up and felt good at first because he had had the chance to do a little research. But while taking his shower and making coffee and getting ready and everything he had felt this pain in his right shoulder. He never had had problems with his joints and all of a sudden getting a mug from the kitchen cupboard felt like someone would try to rip his arm off. He couldn't understand why it had to be the right arm first, when the season was about to start. Maybe it had been something else, maybe there was another explanation to it, maybe it was something that disappeared that day a few hours later and would again show up now or tomorrow or in four weeks. He just couldn't tell. He couldn't calculate it. And that made him go crazy in his mind.

So he had spent one hour sitting on the couch feeling miserable, not able to do something. He didn't even noticed Musashi standing behind him and observing him. Feeling busted he simply had ran off, ran away from him, ran away from a potential conversation.

He figured out that it had been easier to hide such moments when the damn dog was around them, because dogs always got excited when someone else entered the room. That might have warned him, pulled him back to reality. But he hadn't got a dog anymore. And it was stupid, really stupid. He could spank himself for admitting that it was right what he had been told: Pets make you feel good, when you feel down.

'Fucking shit… ' he mumbled to himself, drinking his coffee. What a stupid idea to think, that a dog would prevent others from noticing soon, what a stupid situation, that two people already seem to have noticed something and how stupid the season would start and he already knew that it could be his last one as quarterback in the Japan National Football League.

Of course playing football wasn't really his job. But it was his life. And he didn't want to imagine quitting his dream at the poor age of 27 – especially if his real job was all about football. He bought stadiums, let them built, bought football teams, made them rise and basically promoted the world of football to Japan and made a lot of money by doing that. What his company exactly did was pretty hard to tell. But the fact was, that by being surrounded by football relating assignments and tasks while not being able to play it anymore would feel like hell to him.

And he wasn't sure if he could deal with that. He knew that no one would do so.

All this thinking brought nothing but headaches and stomachaches. Even staying in his office until late that evening didn't help at all. So he decided to skip taking the train home and walked across the streets, taking deep breaths of the fresh air at spring time although it started raining. Hiruma desperately searched for inner peace right now. He didn't want to muse again about that, he wanted to have clear thoughts. He wanted to make every game in this season work perfectly well and by plan. And after that he would retire, telling the public that he'll be concentrating on his company, telling Musashi finally what was going on and everything will be fine. But this season… he had to play perfectly. He had to turn it into the season of his life. He had to go with guns blazing and nothing else. This last thing was left to do. This last thing was something he desired to simply happen. No, he expected it to happen as planned. He would not start praying or hoping for it.

Just when he put his decision on that he crossed a small box at the corner of a street. Actually he wanted to pass by but something caught his attention. A silent grunting came out from it and the box started wobbling a bit. Hiruma came closer and heard a few scratching like sounds, slight whimpering and again grunting followed by the hell of a sneeze. When Hiruma looked over the edge he saw a small brown puppy ducking inside the box with his little furry ass up and his tail wobbling excitedly, jumping at the inside of the box and trying to escape. The box looked pretty fucked up, it was wet and smell rotten and moldy. The puppy grunted again. And just by snarling this small brown cotton swab started to sneeze again.

For the first time that day it put a waggish smile on Hiruma Youichi's face.

'That's a pretty shitty situation you got there, fucking puppy', he mumbled. By its look the dog had obviously been abandoned.

Somehow Hiruma liked that wet and dirty thing at first sight. And although it looked so shabby, he stretched his arms and grabbed this very small and pathetic being. Instantly the dog kept quiet when it saw Hiruma's face and felt his fingers around its belly. It stopped whimpering and grunting from one second to another and turned his face to an ugly expression by letting his tongue hang out while slobbering and panting heavily.

'Are you just a spineless fucker or thankful?', Hiruma snickered a bit, 'well, we'll figure it out.'

Said and done. He took it with him.

'And shut your little dirty trap', he whispered, when entering the house. The lights were switched off and everything stayed silent. So Musashi must have been asleep already. Hiruma was thankful because he didn't want to make a fuss over bringing a new dog. Somehow he felt the joy of life returning into his veins. The bad mood from the past days and the gloomy thoughts were gone all of a sudden, when he tried to free this ugly and dumb looking dog from all the mud and filth. He enrolled it in a towel and tiptoed upstairs. He crossed the bedroom to go to the bathroom and took a short look at Musashi snoring like hell, almost hugging a fucking pillow.

'That fucking man always in need for a fucking stupid hug', he sighed, but after returning from the shower he suddenly felt like… being hugged. Too good Musashi didn't notice ANYTHING when he was asleep. He just kept on sleeping like a log when Hiruma lifted his arm to put it around himself and rubbed his back against Musashi's vibrating torso. It felt warm… and cozy… it felt good.

''''''''''''''''''''

Musashi woke up in the middle of the night finding himself embracing Hiruma tightly, who breathed deep and silently. Not that he had worried about Hiruma coming home so late, but he felt glad right now that he held him in his arms, feeling his soft body. He slowly hugged him tighter and wanted to put a leg around him, when he noticed Hiruma's tummy moving.

Wait a second right here… his tummy… moved?  
Musashi lifted himself up confused, but the blanket was moving and grunting… just like it did when Cerberus II jumped into their bed at night. He just couldn't believe his eyes… was he hallucinating? Did he really become old now?

And the movement was so small and the grunting sounded so quietly… it couldn't be that fat dog. No he couldn't be it, he was dead! Musashi hesitated for a second and carefully grabbed around Hiruma's waist to lift the blanket. What he found was… ugly… but cute. It was a really small and tiny slobbering stupid looking and loudly breathing puppy.

'Hello there…', he whispered and softly grabbed it. It was so small that one of his hands was enough place for it. 'What are you doing here? Is this the stupid elf's doing, hm?', he mumbled and petted the small head. The answer came quickly, when the puppy yawned and jumped back to where it was lying before, snuggling up tightly to his new master. Surprised by this déjà-vû-like sight Musashi smiled kindly.

_"_"_"_"_"_"_"

So Cerberus III has moved it. I promised to reveal what's wrong with Hiruma in this chapter but as I had some more ideas for details, I decided that this chapter would become too long. So revealing time is up to chapter 4 or 5 :3


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